Software Developer

Support Specialist

Systems Analyst

System analysts figure out how to use computers to get things done. They tell businesses and other organizations which computers and software to buy, and they decide how to get those tools to work together.

Video Game Designer (Multimedia Artist)

Video game designers, multimedia artists, and animators create animation and visual effects for television, movies, video games, and other forms of media.

Video: Developer

What really impacts [us] the most is the things we use everyday, our phones, applications [apps], technology, websites. Someone is building this and are the people that are building it look like me or other people? Do they look like a diverse [different cultures] community?

A developer is someone that takes coding languages and builds website and applications. I am a front end developer. I’m working now on HTML and CSS [code to create websites] and really trying to improve the way that the website that I’m working on shows up on the internet [online].

What’s your day like?

It changes everyday. There are some days that I welcome guests from different countries who are wanting to know how to do what we do here at 18F. Other times I am sitting at my computer trying to fix bugs [errors in a computer program], trying to center a column or make a button look pretty.

What is 18F?

18F is group of technologists that are in the government. The group I’m surrounded by here at 18F are folks who are passionate about making the U.S. Government accessible [easy for people]. They happen to be people who know how to code and they really care. You find in government folks who are trying to do really good things.

What’s the hardest part of your job?

Government is big. The government provides so many services for the public. There is a ton to do. I really love it and and also feel overwhelmed sometimes about that amount of work.

What advice do you have for kids?

Sometimes you’ll be told that maybe this isn’t right for you or that coding can be tough. If you really think that building the way that you access websites is really exciting for you, then stick with it. I think it is a very rewarding job to be able to show the world like hey look I made this.

Video: Learn Coding and Build a Future

Coding is the process of building websites, applications [apps]. One thing that I know kids are really into is Minecraft. That whole game has been built on code. So has all of the social media, Twitter, Snapchat, Facebook has all been written by people who write code.

Explain writing code

Writing code is telling the computer exactly what to do. It’s telling the computer to show these colors. When you click this button, it will lead you to another page.

You get to see your results, really fast. Either results that are wrong or results that are right. There is something really beneficial to seeing what you’ve built instantly. And being able to see other people interact with it.

Where can kids learn code?

The one that I always recommend to start off with is code.org. And it gives you an introduction and it gives you a taste for it.

If we see our young people, especially young girls find an interest in it, we should be encouraging it. I think these programs that center that is so important and I hope that we can do that a lot more.

Once you code, you really see, like wow this is an amazing thing that people can do and it’s so exciting for young people to be excited about that. It kind of gets you on more of a personal level with technology.

It isn’t just about the technology, it isn’t about the Science, it also isn’t about just coding. It is around building things that connect people.